What's the "truth" on this?
I Dunno. MOSFETs are generally the sensitive things, even within chips (essentially all modern chips are build out of MOSFETs), because they have a thin oxide layer designed to hold off about 20V, and it's not good to discharge a static charge (1000+ V) though it; it leaves holes behind that interfere with further correct operations. But I don't know how a typical high-power MOSFET (high power ought to mean pretty sturdy, right? But on the other hand, they don't have any other circuitry around to protect them) compares to a typical IC (which I generally regard as pretty robust in spite of very tiny MOSFETs, but then there's lots of other circuitry there...)
I'm usually inclined to install passive components first in a PCB anyway, just because of the heat issues...